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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

WIP Wedesday #7

I've spent a lot of the last week in the car! Visiting my parents, away at a work conference, its been all go here. I still found some sewing time however, so here is my little progress report for the week.

Completed this week:

Actually, its been a pretty good week, in terms of finishes. I sewed like a woman possessed on Thursday night to get gifts finished for my little niece for her birthday:

I also managed to get a few small scappy pincushions done - this one with my Its a Hoot scraps:

And this one with some nice Amy Butler scraps I had in my stash, both for some friends:

I also finished this cute little mug rug, after being inspired by all the lovely tutorials for Mug Rug Madness over at the lovely blog Two More Seconds.

Its not dissimilar to the wonky stripes one I made a few weeks ago, but I kept the strips quite straight and wonked up the quilting after seeing Jeni's tutorial. I'm really pleased with how it turned out apart from my mitred corners which did not go well (I might pick them back and redo, or I might just leave them!). I've had this fabric in my stash for a while now and it works really nicely as the backing.

I have another identical set of strips pieced that I might cut back a little in size and make a complimentary smaller one. I'm thinking that these might work nicely as a Mother's Day present for one of the kids' nanas!

Work in Progress:

I have a lot of projects on the go at the moment. I'm still at fabric layout stage for my Its A Hoot quilt blocks. Nothing to show you yet there, its packed up at the moment but I'm hoping to do more work on it tonight and get piecing the blocks.
I have some baby girl patchwork pram blankets to get done for some friends who had babies in the last few weeks - hopefully will get to finish them this weekend.

I read Lynne's post on piecing the inner circle yesterday and want to do this later in the week. But I want to add an additional inner circle in the brown fabric (like this)

and am not sure how I'm going to do it. I could piece it. But I'm more inclined to applique it on using a nice small zigzag stitch. Much easier and less work. Will it work nicely though or just look weird against the rest of it? I'd love some opinions on this one as I'm really not sure what to do. If its not going to look good, I will (maybe not very enthusiastically) go ahead and piece it - I'll have to do a bit of tutorial searching as piecing circles is not something I've done at all. But I do want it to have a nice finish so I'd appreciate advice from all of you experienced quilters out there :-)

On Hold:

The curtains have gone back in the box to my dismay. Must, must get them moving again!

The Cosmo bag is on a little break, I intend picking it up in a week or 2 again.

Thinking about:

I can't get the Bottled Rainbows QALout of my head this last two weeks. Really, I so want to do this one but I don't have a) the time or b) the fabric to do it, and I can't justify going buying another FQ bundle for it. Any ideas? Maybe I could size up the blocks and do a few single blocks as placemats / mug rugs in the colours that I do have in my stash? What do you think?

I'm linking this up to Work In Progress Wednesday over at Freshly Pieced, go check out the great projects linked up there, I love seeing what everyone is working on each week! I'm also linking it to Lily's Quilts Fresh Sewing Day:

Doing the inner circle, following Lynne's directions to the word, isn't as bad as the build up! I managed it - but as I am only doing one block and using only scraps (that's how confident I was!), maybe I just got lucky!

I love your fabric so much, you must do what you feel will do it justice - I like the double circle idea - or is that double trouble?

Love your circles! Sadly I have no ideas how to piece them. I've never done dresdens or anything like it!Get those curtains out!! I just pulled mine out today after waiting weeks to get to them. It's been like a black cloud hanging over my head and feels good to put a dent in them.

To do your 2nd circle you could cut circle, do small running stitch all round edge, pop a smaller circle of card on wrong side and pull up stitching to enclose the card. press gently and remove the card and you have a nice circle with turned in edges to needleturn applique onto your piece.An alternative to raw edge or bonded applique.

Oh, that dresden is beautiful! My recommendation is exactly what Sheila said, that's always how I applique circles. I don't think it will look strange at all. Maybe a touch more dimensional than a pieced center, but other than that you probably won't be able to tell the difference.

About Me

Welcome! I'm Sarah, modern quilter and unashamed fabric addict. Also, busy working mum to 3 small people. This blog is my little escape from the madness of my everyday life. When I'm not sewing, I'm dreaming up projects & learning all I can. I like to knit and crochet too and love a good chat! So please, stay, have a look around and join in the fun.